Authors

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-11-2005

Department

Polymers and High Performance Materials

Abstract

Ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of L-lactide was combined with atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) to produce well-defined linear block copolymers. Poly(L-lactide) (PLLA) was synthesized via ROP using ethylene glycol as an initiator and stannous octoate as a catalyst. The isolated hydroxy-telechelic PLLA was reacted with thionyl chloride and pyridine in toluene to afford chloro-telechelic PLLA (Cl-PLLA-Cl). The latter was employed as a macroinitiator in the synthesis of A-B-A triblock copolymers having either tert-butyl acrylate or benzyl acrylate outer blocks. Outer-block molecular weight was targeted by the mole ratio of monomer (acrylate) to the PLLA chloride initiating sites. The actual incorporation of acrylate into the triblock copolymer was lower than the molar feed ratio as the copolymer became increasingly less soluble upon conversion of acrylate in all cases. &COPY; 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.